Digital cinema projection systems are often used to display motion pictures in commercial movie theaters. Typically, such systems comprise a digital video projector and a playback server that provides digital content to the projector. In typical projection systems, the content is supplied from the server to the projector over one or more video links, such an a high definition serial digital interface (“HD-SDI”) or digital video interface (“DVI”) connection. In order to accommodate higher resolution content, such as 12-bit, 4:4:4 RGB video data, some digital cinema projection systems employ two video links, or a “dual-link,” to provide the bandwidth necessary to transfer this higher resolution content from the playback server to the projector.
A variety of encoding schemes may be employed to transfer content over dual-link systems. For example, the conventional method of transmitting 12-bit, 4:4:4, RGB data over a dual-link HD-SDI connection is the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (“SMPTE”) 372 standard. Unfortunately, SMPTE 372 reserves certain codes for non-video, synchronization data. This, however, limits the range of video codes that may be transported over the dual-link connection, which in turn limits the resolution of video content that may be transported over the dual-link HD-SDI connection.